


Letters to Bahorel

by LittleBittyPrettyOne



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drawing Classes, F/M, Smoking, and also there is a cat, in which I introduce you to my headcanon about Bahorel's Laughing Mistress, look we have the Mistress name!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-07 14:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleBittyPrettyOne/pseuds/LittleBittyPrettyOne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each Ami is asked to pass an envelope to Bahorel by the charming, mystery lady.<br/>Who is she? What is in the letters she gives them? Are they little shits who will read them, even though they aren't recipients?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Enjolras

It is typical for Enjolras to be the first person at Cafe Musain on Fridays. It is also typical that no one else than his friends comes there that day, so when the ring above the doors announces new incomer, Enjolras expects to see one of Les Amis. He is surprised to see a blond haired woman in a white coat. 

She looks around, apparently searching for someone and when she notices Enjolras she smiles politely and walks towards him. He notices she isn’t as tall as he thought at first, her ridiculously high heels making her at least 10 centimeters taller than she actually is. Also her hair is dyed, what he concludes from short dark roots, clearly visible as she is wearing her hair combed back and tied in a neat, elegant bun. It’s a good choice, that makes her heart-shaped face looks more mature. Her heels knock against panels as her smile gets wider with every step. When she finally reaches the sofa, Enjolras is sitting on, she pulls her hands out of pockets and after removing leather gloves, she reaches out her right hand in a greeting.

“Hello,” she says, her voice slightly hoarse and a little bit lower than he had expected. The man stays up and shakes her hand. He opens his mouth ready to inform her about the meeting that is going to take place there, but she is quicker.

“You must be Enjolras, right?” She remarks, letting his hand go and opening her satchel. He nods, not really surprised by her knowledge. “Listen, “ she continues, holding a white envelope in her hands. “I know there is some kind of political meeting there tonight and a friend of mine attends it usually and I would be very grateful if you could pass him this,” she draws the envelope toward Enjolras who takes it immediately, more by being surprised with the gesture than an actual desire to take the paper. He looks at it and is about to ask who is it for, but again the woman forestalls him.

“His name is Bahorel.”

“Yes, Bahorel,” Enjolras says like it was typical occurrence, that beautiful strangers leaves envelopes for the boxer. “I’ll deliver it to him.”

“Thank you very much, Enjolras,” she smiles again and turns on her heels. When she reaches the doors Enjolras recalls something.

“Ma’am? Who is this from if he asks.”

She laughs at the question, turning back to the man. It’s deep, cheerful laugh, colored by the same hoarseness her voice is. 

“He won’t.” she assures him as she finishes laughing and with that she leaves the café.

Enjolras puts the envelope on the coffee table next to his laptop and goes back to the paper he was working on when the woman interrupted him. It’s only few minutes later when the others arrive to the café and the envelope is forgotten as soon as the meeting starts. 

It’s when Enjolras reaches for his things after assembly is over when he remembers. He grabs the envelope and catches Bahorel at the doors.

“There was a woman, before the meeting and she asked me to pass you this.” He says as he hands it over to the boxer.

Bahorel takes the envelope and looks closer at it half grinning. 

“Thanks, E.” he says as he hides it in the inside pocket of his jacket as he walks out of the café.


	2. Grantaire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire meets the Mistress.

Grantaire doesn’t particularly enjoy his life-drawing classes. It’s not that he doesn’t understand the point of it or that he doesn’t find them important for his higher education, it’s just that the teacher is an old boring lady who doesn’t pay attention to her subject and it would be a compliment for the models, that University is hiring, to call them beginners. Grantaire is actually sure they are far ahead being beginners. 

He is sitting in front of his drawing board, chewing a gum when the teacher attends the class with a model. The drawing starts as always: the old lady explains what they are suppose to do, while positioning the model in the center of boards circle. She’s seated down on a wooden stool, one leg propped up on the seat, tightly clinging to the chest, while the other leg hangs down loosely, her toes barely touching the ground. She is looking to the right, her blonde hair falling over the left arm, leaving the tattoo running down her back and her right side perfectly visible. It’s a complicated composition of flowers, quotes and dozens of smaller and bigger details that if you look from away looks like a dragon with its wings on her shoulder-blades and long tail, running down her ribs then twisting up to end up wrapped around her right nipple. It looks kind of odd on her petite body, but then again when Grantaire looks close enough he notices the draft of muscles on her abdomen and mystery scars on her body, hardly standing out on her milky white skin.

She’s a surprisingly good model, barely moving, her gaze focused on the view behind the window the whole time. She doesn’t even flinch when people get closer to examine her tattoo, she just sits there, breathing calmly, like that was a normal occurrence for her to be watched by so many people in such an intimate situation.  
When Grantaire finishes the outlines of her body, he focuses on the dragon. The first thing he notices is that the wings are in fact tattooed in a form similar to palms. It looks like someone put hands on the girls’ body and contours them with quotes and then keep writing black words around them until palms stopped looking like palms and started looking like wings with smooth edges and long sharp ramifications in places where thumbs suppose to be. There are white jasmine’s and pink camellia’s flowers as well as petals woven in between and behind letters assisted by two gigantic red hibiscuses filling the emptiness in the middle of wings, their columns meeting between the wings, making some sort of a bridge between dragon’s body and its tail. The body is in fact made of different sizes tulips, covering one another, each one carefully shaded from burgundy to light pink, so it would look like the dragon was lighter in the middle and darker on his sides, matching to misty wings. Stalks of tulips, carefully tangled around hibiscuses’ columns, create the begging of a dragon’s tail until they are cautiously separated into columns of words, getting thinner and thinner until there is only one line tattooed on the girl’s breast. 

It’s beautiful work, Grantaire thinks, reading sentences written on the model’s skin. It’s simply curiosity, he knows he won’t be able to make tiny letters visible on the paper, considering the perspective he is drawing the girl in. There are songs’ lyrics as well as books’ quotes and poetry. There are words of great writers as well as the ones R finds annoying and the words he can’t really link to anyone, thought they sound familiar.

He moves his gaze to the girl’s face only to notice she’s been observing him. Her eyes are smiling at him, though her lips stay closed and lacks the grin as she was instructed at the beginning of class. He smiles back, before turning on his heels and coming back to his work. 

It’s half an hour later when professor announces a break and the girl stays up, covering herself with a wrapper. She stretches out, various bones in her body popping loudly, making Grantaire turn his attention on her. She’s looking at him, this time smiling widely. She walks toward him, her steps light and almost inaudible, like the gravitation would barely apply to her.

“May I see?” she asks, still standing behind the board, not wanting to behold his work without the permission.

“Be my guest,” Grantaire answers, nodding. 

She half walks half jumps over the bag lying on her way between two boards and gracefully turns towards the picture. She squints her eyes and twists her head, studying traces of charcoal in silence.

“I like it,” she decides after a while, without moving her gaze. “I like the way you caught the light.”

“Thank you,” Grantaire smiles. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” she looks at him with her eyebrow slightly crooked.

“Where did you get your tattoo?”

“There are only three good color tattoo artists in the city. One you know, one is far over my financial abilities and one did this thing, Grantaire,” she explains.

“You read my name on the students list, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I did,” she admits.

“But then again, how do you know I know Feuilly?”

“We have a mutual friend,” She says and before Grantaire can offer her any answer on that she adds: “Speaking of whom, may I ask you for a favor?”

“What kind of favor?” He inquires.

“Nothing big,” she shrugs. “I need to give something to someone and I can’t really meet up with this person in near future. Incompatibility of schedules, you know.”

“To our mutual friend?” He asks.

“Very observant,” she chuckles, twisting her head slightly to the right. “I’ll give you details after class, okay? I have this thing in my bag and I really don’t want to walk out of here now.”

“Sure.” Grantaire nods, watching the girl closely and considering whose friend she might be. He can’t really match her to anyone when she’s standing there barefoot in white wrapper. 

“Excuse me now,” she starts suddenly “but I’ll go see others works.”

She smiles one more time and moves toward the girl in glasses with very short and also very pink hair. Grantaire doesn’t watch them as they talk, deciding to focus on his drawing now rather than on the girl he probably will never meet again.

The break is over and the model sits back on the stool, taking the same position she did before. He forgets about the conversation, they’d just had as soon as he starts drawing again. Lines, smudging, improvement, few ads, few removes more corrects and he is done. He waits until the professor announces end of the lesson and then leaves letting the girl know he’s going to wait for her outside the building.

He plays with his lighter (the white one, that used to belong to Eponine and had leopard printing on it, until she drunkenly scratched it off), when the girl walks out of the doors. Accompanied by a regular knock of her heels she walks towards Grantaire and hands him white, blank envelope.

“As I was saying I wanted to pass it to my friend. His name is Bahorel. I believe you two have boxing classes together. Am I wrong?”

“Not in the slightest.” He answers, slowly glancing at her with more curiosity in his icy blue eyes than he did before. Truth to be told his personal types were Musichetta and Courfeyrac, especially when he saw her fully clothed. 

“Thank you, Grantaire.” She says, already walking down the stairs.

“How should I call you?” he shouts after her, hiding the envelope in the inside pocket of his leather jacket.

She stops for a moment and turns around, considering.

“How about the girl with a dragon tattoo?” she shouts back.

“I like this one.” He laughs, earning a bow from her.

 

It’s Saturday, which means either clubbing night or bar hopping night and since the person who makes the choice this time is Courfeyrac the decision is rather obvious. So Grantaire ends up dressed up in the tightest jeans and V-top he owns, buying the bottle of average vodka before heading to Feuilly’s and Bahorel’s on the before party. It’s when he is looking for his wallet, his hand stumps upon the paper in his pocket, he’d completely forgot about.

As he walks into the flat, after quick knocking he puts the bottle on the kitchen top, next to already prepared glasses. He throws the envelope on Bahorel, who ignored his friend’s entry, too busy watching “Hannibal” rerun. 

“Salander sends her regards.”

Bahorel laughs and picks the paper up, without even looking at it. He puts it on top of the other identical, but opened envelope and grins widely as Courfeyrac enters the flat followed by already tipsy Joly and Bousset.

“Whatcha got there?” asks Feuilly walking out of the balcony, smelling of just smoked cigarettes.

“Scotch.” Answers pre-med student, holding the bottle up above his head. 

“We’re going to mix scotch with vodka?”

“You know what they say. Go hard or go home.” Jokes Courf taking off his jacket.

Grantaire makes a mental note to ask Bahorel about envelopes as he is handed the glass with golden liquid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is how you put Chapter Notes... Well :>  
> This one is definitely longer than the first one.  
> I hope you liked it :>


	3. Feuilly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lazy and boring Sunday isn't as lazy and boring as Feuilly thought it would be considering he has an unexpected visitor.

It’s Sunday and on Sundays the tattoo shop is usually closed unless there are some special appointments made. However, today there aren’t any so Feuilly is planning to spend most of the day catching up with some TV Series and writing his essay on the history evening classes. Percy, the cat he adopted a while ago, jumps on the sofa and curls next to him. She lies there purring from time to time and demanding Feuilly’s attention. He mindlessly scratches her behind the ear only half focusing on the TV screen when he hears the doorbell. He groans as Percy jumps off the sofa and runs towards the doors ready to hiss at whoever dared to disturb them. 

On his way to the doors Feuilly picks her up and settles under his arm. As he undo the lock he expects to see hangover Grantaire or Eponine with Gavroche asking him for taking the boy into custody for the day. However, a woman in front of him isn’t similar to any of them. If he’d be honest, he would say she doesn’t remind him of anyone.

She’s standing there, the black leather satchel tugged under her left arm mirroring the position he’s holding Percy in. She smiles at him, before saying in a husky voice:

“Hi, I’m looking for a guy named Bahorel. I didn’t mix up the addresses, did I?”

“Nah, but he’s not here right now.” Feuilly answers mentally thanking himself for holding the cat. If this is one of those girls his flat mate pissed off maybe she’ll be tactful enough not to throw whatever she planned on throwing at the person with an animal. Thought he may be wrong concluding from the way she looks. She reminds him of the lecturer from the sophomore year: the women so naturally coldly elegant and sedated, that the time she laughed in his class presence for the first time freaked them all out enough not to talk to the end of said lecture. 

Nonetheless the woman seems to be disappointed with the information in completely non-aggressive way. She sighs offering Feuilly half smile.

“That’s bad,” she decides but doesn’t leave yet. The redhead is confused. She doesn’t seem like anyone Bahorel usually hangs out with. Neither is she the type he’s hooking up with from time to time. She doesn’t look like his university or gym friends. Truth to be told, she looks out of place here, in front of him, in front of Bahorel’s flat and Feuilly can’t imagine this all in all elegant, small and so composed woman talking to or even being in the presence of his loud, tank build friend. Maybe it’s politeness maybe curiosity but he blurts out before she decides to go:

“Do you maybe want me to pass him something?”

“Um…” She starts, shifting slightly nervously. “That would be nice of you but these are pretty detailed information, more of directions in fact, and I really don’t want him to get them messed up.”

“Oh,” Is all Feuilly can say.

“Do you mind if I.. uhm…” She licks her lips, clearly uncomfortable with the words that are going to leave her mouth. “Would it be a problem if I stepped in and wrote it down so you could pass him it later? I won’t be able to drop it by anytime soon. He doesn’t pick up the phone and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to contact him later either.”

“No, no. I mean come in,” he agrees stepping back to let her in.

She smiles at him with the one of the brightest smiles he’s ever seen as she passes him by. 

“We don’t really own a table so use the bar top,” he instructs her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“That’s because I didn’t say it,” she smiles taking of her black coat and putting it on the bar stool next to the one she decides to sit on. She’s wearing one of this perfectly matched outfits where the white shirt is put into the black leather skirt secured by equal belt with golden buckle. The collar of her jacket is also leather as it duplicating the texture of the skirt just like knee boots she’s wearing. All the details are measured: tiny golden earrings match the color of the watch on her wrist and the buckle. She has a French manicure that either is just made or she is really careful when it comes to her hands which might be the point since they both seem very neat. It hits Feuilly again how much she’s out of the picture sitting in clean but still not the most elegant kitchen annex having her legs crossed and back straightened.

“So…” He starts awkwardly, “what is it, then?”

She smiles again and it’s the same bright smile that before.

“Lea,” she offers, “it’s nice of you asking me that question, Feuilly. Do you maybe have a pen?”

He puts Percy on the ground and heads to the cupboard next to the TV.

“Don’t you need a paper too?” He asks as he gives her the only pen he’s sure is working placing himself in front of her.

“No, thanks. I’ve got my own,” she pulls the stationery out of her satchel and picks one set only to hide the rest back. “You might think it’s weird to carry that stuff around but I prefer the word unusual.”

He laughs letting Percy to jump into his lap and then onto the bar top. The cat smells Lea’s hand, the one she’s not holding the pen in, before tugging its head under it demanding attention. She smiles scratching the pet which decides to lie down just in front of her. Feuilly draws his hands to take Percy away but Lea just shakes her head.

“If you’re going to take her, because you think she’s bothering me then don’t,” she puts the satchel on the right side of the cat and starts writing. “I don’t really mind. “

He smiles, looking at her with even more curiosity than before.

“I also don’t mind you talking,” she adds after a while. “This silence isn’t awkward yet but you know… If you want to ask me anything or so, go on, Feuilly.”

She puts up her gaze only once, drifting it across the room barely stopping at the redhead’s face before coming back to the paper. 

“I’m just wondering how did you met Bahorel,” Feuilly eventually decides to say.

“At the bar,” she smirks not looking away from the paper. “Which is not that surprising, you must admit.”

“No. It’s not. It’s just he’s never mentioned you and, don’t get me wrong, but it’s weird since you know my name and that the cat is actually she,” he blurts out and now when he said it out loud it sounds even weirder.

“Well, he mentioned both you and Percy few times and I’ve got good memory. And you haven’t asked me yet for how long do we know each other.”  
Lea winks at him putting the paper into the envelope. She doesn’t bother to close it properly, just folds the top flap.

“How long do you know each other, then?”

She laughs. It’s surprising how loud and deep her laugh is and Feuilly find himself smiling, the sound escaping her lips making him relaxed and gleeful.

“I won’t give you that,” Lea says after she stops laughing. “That’d be too easy.”

She stands up grabbing her coat and satchel. She hands him the envelope.

“It was really nice to meet you in person. Don’t bother walking me to the doors,” she adds as she notices him standing up. “I know the way.”

She pets Percy one more time before walking out of the tiny kitchen annex and smiles once more as she walks through the doors.

“See you around,” he bids her goodbye.

“Hope so,” she replies and the doors go shut.

It briefly crosses his mind to read the letter. 

 

Bahorel comes back the next evening. His entry is announced by the carpetbag being dropped mildly aggressively on the floor and the loud groan as he lies down next to it. 

“If I will ever again want to go to visit my sister, will you, please, punch me in the face with a pan?”

“I would but we have only one pan so you know.” Feuilly answers kicking him lightly in the ribs. Bahorel grunts in response. The redhead laughs and adds: “You had a visitor yesterday.”

“She actually came here?”

“Yeah and…”

“… she left the letter.”

“How do you know?” Feuilly is surprised. He’d put his money that Bahorel is smirking into the carpet now. “She stepped by, wrote it and then left.”

“You’ve let Lea in?” he raises himself on his forearms, looking at his flat mate with surprise and something very similar to worry.

“Yes…”

“Give it to me.” Bahorel orders and the other man finds himself suddenly being very curious about the envelope’s content. He however he passes it to his flat mate without trying to find it out knowing that this kind of behavior can cost him some bruises and maybe even a broken bone.

Even if Bahorel is surprised the envelope isn’t closed he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he takes out the paper and reads it quickly, his eyes don’t stop moving until he finishes the last line. Then he lets out a shaky laugh.

“You’re not going to tell me what’s in it, are you?” Feuilly asks.

“You had a goddamn day to read it. You’ve lost your chance.”

It earns him another light kick in the ribs and he laughs again pressing the paper against his chest.   
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, look! We have a name! Yay!  
> As always, I hope you enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> As always I hope you had fun.  
> Go do something more productive now then reading my shitty writing.
> 
> I can't fgure out how to put notes to every chapter so... I'm going to put them here?  
> [1] This is probably the shortest chapter, though I'm not sure cos I don't have all of them written down yet. However the second and the third are definitely longer, so beware my friends.


End file.
